Have you ever gotten into a game because of its sprites?

[Koh]

I can 100% tell you I've never stopped playing a game because of the graphics.

To me, gameplay encompasses the mechanics of the game, the controls, the difficulty, and glitches/bugs of the engine. Basically, anything that deals with how the game performs. So frame rate drops, for example, would make the gameplay take a massive hit, because the player's inputs are getting dropped, and the engine was clearly un-optimized. The music, visuals and story have absolutely no bearing on how the game actually runs and what its mechanics are, so I separate them.

I may COME for the visuals (i.e. Seiken Densetsu 3 and its grand spritework), but I don't leave because of them. The gameplay is usually what drives me away, if not then the story being too bland and not giving me a reason to care about the characters. The music also attracts me to games (i.e. Lufia), and it can get you to leave if it's obnoxious enough (some unlicensed Chinese games).

Like I said, you play a game to PLAY a game, not to stare at graphics all day like it's a still image.